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<title>to ignore the days where I hate myself (I will always look for you in the quiet empty nothing) by todd_ie</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25692019">to ignore the days where I hate myself (I will always look for you in the quiet empty nothing)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/todd_ie/pseuds/todd_ie'>todd_ie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Early Days, Established Relationship, Introspection, Mental Health Issues, Other, Self-Hatred</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:14:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>647</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25692019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/todd_ie/pseuds/todd_ie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"When you stepped into the light<br/>I saw it running down your thighs<br/>And thought, what a beautiful sight<br/>To see you alive"</p><p>Leaving Wokingham might have helped, but everything still crawled back.<br/></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dan Howell/Phil Lester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>to ignore the days where I hate myself (I will always look for you in the quiet empty nothing)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarredion/gifts">Tarredion</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title is a few bits of lines from "Emptiness Is a Closet Full of Your Old Clothes" by Wishing and the summary is from "To See You Alive" bt Flatsound. i believe those lyrics carried a different meaning, but I felt that the words resonated with the fic. </p><p>for Tarredion just because. (he's a wonderful person who makes me happy &lt;3)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Other people perceptions have weighted on Dan’s chest since birth – the writing on his birth certificate haunts him as well as the writing on the notes given by his classmates. The idea that he can’t exist beyond this makes it harder to just be.</p><p>He’s sort of being hunted down by it. when you hate yourself, memory becomes a curse. He reminds himself of embarrassing moments he arranged, of the names they called him, the look on his face when he saw him. He wishes he could dump history on a bin or rub it off of himself but the best he can do it’s cutting, cutting and cutting out the bits that are too horrible and glueing better ones to it, but those never last enough. It’s all rotten anyway (although Phil doesn’t think so).</p><p>and Dan “has been” the versions other people have of him, the ones he punches into his eyes till they’re sore, at 2 am. He has been something terrifying to live with. He is the feeling he had at Wokingham and he is <span class="u">someone worth loving</span>.</p><p>He looks at Dan's way with his kaleidoscope eyes and an unbelievable amount of love on his chest and says Dan’s made for loving. that everything in Dan is to love.</p><p>Dan wouldn’t be lying if he said Phil makes his existence a bit more sparkly all throughout. Dan has been feeling like an old haunted house that was destined to demolition. He has a few windows with lights on now, some life living happily inside. It’s nice in a way that’s too unreal.</p><p>Dan has tried not caring about what people thought of him before (and the line between failure and success is rather large – but he has failed miserably. This worry of his has simply developed into another topic, someone he cannot hide from with a joke) and he cares so much about just knowing better now. So he’ll hate himself louder than anyone, he’ll walk with a knife against his throat, cutting his breath short and he’ll be always fucking scared of losing him. He has told himself he’s an awful person enough to be a haunting image.</p><p>It’ll carry to Phil at some point. It’s just what he deserves. and it's fucking obvious he’ll lose the most important thing in life and hurt who he loves the most…or whatever the void between the universe and himself has to say.</p><p>Maybe Phil is closer to Dan than both Dan and the void think he really is. Multi-coloured eyes giving him a fond look. Cut right through the darkness (always sometimes).</p><p>Dan is home to someone, too. He is the body warm and loving Phil is held by. Joy and comfort. While Phil’s eyes do home invasion on an abandoned house and highlight all the places dan has violently smudged it off of himself with love and it’s as if he could make everything beautiful again. He is the voice and the smiles Phil is always happy to see.</p><p>He just kisses it and loves on it.</p><p>The void could always (and is always) laugh it off because he doesn’t deserve this, but it gets to a point where it’s past the matter of deserving it or not.</p><p>Dan guesses it’s just what it is. for the matter of being.</p><p>To Phil he is beautiful and that’s maybe the only valid opinion as there is a smile on Phil’s face when he’s sleeping and cuckoo of a boyfriend, knocking his door all the time. Panging and panging and panging on his heart insisting there is love for him. He really did take the title of a lost boy who pleaded ‘new land’ at the inside of Phil’s chest once.</p><p>He should remind himself of that too.</p><p>He tells Phil he loves him; he reminds him that he’ll do anything. <span class="u">He loves him.</span></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i hope i didn't come off as romanticizing mental health issues, I wasn't trying to. it can look like I was talking about a specific mental illness but I wasn't really, it's more of a symptom i can't identify. </p><p>big thanks to tarredion, again. &lt;3<br/>and thank you for reading it, i hope you enjoyed! :) it wasn't really made to be grand, i just always wanted to write something and this draft seemed to be semi-good enough. i recommend templeofshame's "both to be seen and be seen through" which is also about how dan sees himself, and i think it's just strongly good and i love it.<br/>feel free to say hi on <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/and-it-feels-endless"> tumblr</a><br/>(i still don't know how to do that thing with links.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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